


lost in yesterday

by nights



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon Fix-It, Redeemed Azula, Spirit World (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nights/pseuds/nights
Summary: In her attempt to overthrow Zuko and take her place on the throne, Princess Azula stumbles into the Spirit World, gets stranded in her past, and is forced to face it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	1. Escape

**Author's Note:**

> It's another Azula redemption fic. Events begin about a year after the end of the show.
> 
> I'll continue to add tags as the fic progresses, but at least for now it's pretty much exclusively Azula by herself.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! I'm excited to write this, I have a lot of ideas for her Spirit World journey!

The indignity of it all will be what kills her.

Or at the very least, she’ll off herself. Azula’s sure of it. She can’t stand it anymore, the sickly sweet smiles of those attendants, eyes betraying their vacant heads. It seems like she spends all day seething. You can’t blame her, what with the staff buzzing around the compound like flies on dung. Her only respite is when she’s left blissfully alone in the gardens, but even then the walls loom high and gray. A dreary color. Azula much prefers red.

She hides in the gardens as much as she can. Some peace and quiet, away from the grating voices of the staff and the other residents. She sits on her favorite bench, tucked away from the main lawn, and it feels like a balm, the silence. Around the others, it feels like her thoughts jangle around in her head, sharp at the edges, unable to grasp at any particular one, until she snarls at whoever’s prattling closest to her. They know she hates vapid chatter. They know, and yet they still drone on.

The sun is dipping behind those high walls, and the chill of the night whispers its way through Azula’s thin regulation shift. She shivers, determined to stay out for as long as possible. She resents never seeing a good sunset — it’s always hidden behind the walls.

Eventually the attendants come for her, and she goes with them — only because she’s cold, and her stomach is crying out for dinner. It’s rare, these days, that she ever has an appetite. Best to make the most of it while it lasts.

The morning comes and with it, an attendant fluttering at her bedside.

“It’s time for group work, Princess Azula,” she trills. The chirpy ones are the worst.

“No,” she growls, pulling her covers over her face.

“We don’t want to keep them waiting,” the attendant says, hand moving nervously, as if to pull at Azula’s blankets. This one knows better.

“I don’t want to go to those inane meetings anymore. It’s a waste of time.” And Azula’s bed is far more comfortable than that wooden chair she’ll have to sit in for an hour, listening to the same gripes over and over from the same pathetic residents. Azula can feel rage boiling in her stomach already.

“I have strict instructions to bring you to group work, Princess.”

Azula knows she won’t leave. They’d been through this before.

“Fine,” Azula hisses. “But I’m not getting dressed.” 

“That’s perfectly okay!” the attendant chirps. “Just as long as you go.”

As always, the seat of the wooden chair is hard. The other residents are annoying. Teary, boring, irritable, sobbing. What a production. Azula ignores them, staring out the window, watching the clouds. At least the clouds don’t make Azula’s head hurt.

“Princess?” the doctor prods.

Azula’s focus is broken. She grimaces.

“What?”

“Would you like to take your turn, Princess?”

She turns her gaze to him. The doctor is old, ancient even. Azula thinks that he had probably seen Sozin’s coronation, he’s so decrepit. 

“No.” Flat, monotone. They don’t deserve more than that.

“Princess, you’ll never heal your weakness if —”

“I’m not weak,” she snaps.

“Your spirit is the cause of your problems, Azula. You have allowed it to be bent, like a brittle sword. You must strengthen it again, reforge it as a true Fire Nation citizen.”

“I’m not a fucking _citizen_. I’m _Princess_ of the Fire Nation. You know nothing of strength.” She can feel the venom in her voice, but she doesn’t care. They should know her disdain for them.

“You will never make progress if you continue to deny your failure of spirit.”

“This is a waste of my time.” She stands sharply. “You’re lucky I didn’t set this whole room ablaze.”

“We’ll see you next week, Princess.”

Azula almost hurls another barb back at the doctor, but presses her lips together instead, holding her head high and striding out of the room. It is past time she got breakfast.

They don’t know what they’re talking about. How could they? None of them knew the pressures of the crown. _Weakness of spirit_. A load of rhino dung, all of it. Who even talks about spirits anymore? Azula doesn’t have a _weak spirit_ , she’d been left for dead. Her father, Mai, Ty Lee, Lo and Li, the Dai Li, all of them. Abandoned. They were the ones with _weak spirits_ , fleeing her side at the eleventh hour. Pathetic. All of them, pathetic.

Azula storms into the dining hall, paying no mind to the startled — frightened — looks a few of the other residents gave her. As they should. She’s a force of nature, they’re right to be scared of her. They all should be. She fills a plate with steaming food; at least her breakfasts aren’t inedible. Fairly tasty, most days.

She eats by herself, fuming. All the creature comforts afforded to her in that godforsaken place are just paint over her cage. If you asked her, Azula wouldn’t be able to recall what she’d done for the past year. The days blur together, getting dragged from doctor to doctor, all of them _incompetent_ , hiding in the gardens when she could, staring into the middle distance and thinking of her days of freedom.

Azula looks at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and notices a stray cobweb flutter. Suddenly, she’s not hungry anymore. Her stomach clenches on her anger. She lets her chopsticks clatter on the table.

She looks to the door. Why hadn’t she just burned the whole place down yet? She could if she really wanted to. And she _really_ wanted to. Didn’t she? But then what? Out here, on this little island, she had no way back to her rightful place on the throne.

The throne… her father had bequeathed it to her, _her_. Not her traitor of a brother, tearing down everything their family had worked for, generations of work turned to ash. He’d always been an embarrassment to their father, a stain on their line. _Not like me… until I failed him. Let that water tribe girl catch me._ She doesn’t like to think about it; it makes her cheeks burn and her stomach twist. _Pathetic_.

She picks up her chopsticks again and brushes her hair out of her face. Thank the stars those horrific bangs had grown out. They were but a misstep. _I’ll forget all about them soon._ Azula picks at her food, pushing a morsel of fish around her plate. The fish are about the only thing that doesn’t have to be shipped to the island.

Shipped. Azula’s thoughts zip from one possibility to another. They had to ship the food, she could take a cargo boat — no, she’d never be able to steer it by herself. A dinghy — no, that would never make it at sea. A fishing boat — perhaps. Perhaps.

Her plan is born that evening, laying in bed on her plush sheets, staring at the dusty ceiling. She had to try; she could never call herself _Princess_ if she didn’t. She’d conquered Ba Sing Se from the inside… she could escape a worthless compound.

Azula waits until the dead of night, when the only sound she can hear is the crickets outside her window, and most of the staff is long gone, leaving only a few attendants and guards. She makes do with what clothes she has — none of them are truly appropriate for traveling — and slips into the hall, making for the kitchens. They’re in a side wing on the bottom floor, and crucially, much less guarded than the front gates.

It’s invigorating, flitting through the halls with her pack, willing her feet to stay silent, having a _goal_ again. Having something, anything to keep her mind focused on. She understands now that she’d been adrift, trapped in an eddy, going around in circles, directionless. Now, she has a direction. _The throne._

She presses her body to the wall, peeking around the corner. A single sleepy guard at the kitchen door. _Perfect. Easy prey._ He’s knocked out with a short yelp — not a problem, no one is really around to hear. At least not before Azula’s out the back door and flying down the path to the docks. _Freedom._

The docks themselves present a new problem. The little port is deserted, used only for shipping in goods for the medical compound, so there’s no one to see her… but there aren’t very many ships to choose from.

Three cargo ships, no doubt with crew members sleeping aboard. _That won’t do._ A junk, _too big_. A few rowboats, _laughable. Showing up to the capital in a rowboat? I’d rather drown._ A little fishing boat, _good enough_. She creeps on, the boat creaking on the waves beneath her. She’s suddenly confronted with the fact that she knows little about sailing, particularly on her own. Sure, she’d managed to pick up a little from her travels around the world, but… _I suppose it’s a trial by fire. Pithy._

She guesses at it, untying the boat from the dock and clumsily unfurling a sail. It hangs limply. She curses the wind under her breath. Then, a breeze catches, and she races to the rudder, and the boat pulls away, bobbing on the soft waves. _Here I come, Zuzu._

* * *

The night is long. Azula had underestimated how much work it would be, darting between the sails and the rudder, struggling with the lines that she isn’t quite sure how to operate. It seems to be going fine, but how can she be certain? Her stolen map and compass would be more useful in the hands of an experienced sailor, but Azula doesn’t have one on hand.

Then, the sun begins to rise, a brilliant array of pinks, lavenders, and yellows blooming across the eastern sky. _The east — that’s east. So I have been going the right way, then._ She needs to head southeast, toward Ember Island, to loop around toward the capital. Then, she’d take what was hers.

She lets her muscles relax, finally, her stomach gurgling. _Some of that kitchen slop._ She roots around in her supplies. More stolen goods, but it doesn’t matter. They might not have known it, but they were serving the good of their nation. _I’ll set things right. They’ll see. Father will see._ Azula pulls out a package of meat buns, tearing into one. The smell makes her mouth water.

The sea was peaceful, so peaceful. _Maybe I’ll go on yachting trips, once I’m Fire Lord again._ It gives her the quiet she so craves. No yammering doctors, no one droning about spirits and weakness and repentance. Just the bright morning sky, a seabird on the wind, and the rush of the waves beneath the little boat. Quiet.

She spends the day much like she’d spent the night, checking the sails, then the rudder, then her map and compass. Watching the sun arc across the sky, rise tall and then sink. By the afternoon, Azula can feel her bones aching for sleep. She hadn’t slept in so long… _I won’t make it to the capital without sleeping. Perhaps a nap…_ She pulls down the sails and prays that she won’t drift too far off course in the meantime.

It’s awkward, her makeshift bed in the tiny cabin. Hard wood, a thin blanket, a pack for a pillow. She thinks wistfully of her feather mattress, back home. _Home, in the palace. My palace. My throne._

Azula wakes to the boat throwing her against the wall and the sound of the waves sloshing around her. She swears, bursting out of the cabin — _This is what I get for letting my guard down_ — into the rain, the wind throwing the droplets sharp on her face. During her nap she’d missed a growing storm; the south skies are dark, and growing darker. Some luck she had.

She works quickly, hands flying to the lines in a panic. She’d never sailed on her own before, let alone through a storm. What was she supposed to do? She lets out the sails and hauls on the rudder, turning the boat away from the storm. Probably useless, but she had to try. She had to do _something_. The wind picks up, the force of it against the sails leaning the little boat on its side — _disaster. If I capsize, I drown._ She pulls down the sails again, leaving just one, and grips the rudder, nails digging into the wood. 

The rain starts coming down harder, soaking Azula’s hair to her face and neck. It may be summer but the sea feels icy, the wind howling in her ears. She struggles against the waves, feels her eyes burn — from the wind or tears, she can’t tell, either way her face is soaked — and the wind screams to her, _failure. A failure. Futile. A monstrous child, a foolish girl._

She sees lightning, flashing brilliant white against the storm clouds. It’s so dark now, the sun gone and the moon obscured by the growling storm. Each flash of lightning is almost blinding, so bright… electric, brilliant, living in ecstasy for a fleeting moment before vanishing into thin air. Azula grips the rudder harder, fingers slipping, soaked in water. _You don’t scare me._

“Is this all you’ve got?!” she shrieks, howling back. _I’m just as terrifying — I’ll show you._ She grits her teeth on the sea spray, salty in her mouth. _I’m the brilliant one; this storm should be the one to fear me._ Thunder claps, challenging her. A duel.

A wave knocks the boat sideways, and for a breathless moment Azula thinks all is lost, before the boat rights itself again. She feels her heartbeat pound in her throat, a traitorous reminder of her body’s reaction to fear. _I’m the frightening one._ Hours upon hours blur together, Azula’s throat hoarse from the wind and returning the storm’s howls. Her arms ache from holding the rudder steady, but she can’t break now. _I’m not weak. There isn’t a weak fiber in my body. Weak. I lost… I’ll never lose again. I’d rather drown than go back there._

She almost sobs when she sees the clouds begin to part — almost. She collapses on the deck, slumped next to the rudder. The wind had whipped the last scraps of energy from her body, and now she was sure she’d sleep for days the next time she saw land. 

Land — where was land? She crawls to the cabin, hoping desperately that her map had survived; _thank the stars, there it is. Father did always say I was born lucky._ She turns her bleary eyes to the sky, rapidly clearing to reveal a blanket of stars. _That star should point south… then that should be east… or, no, that one points south…_ She scrubs at her eyes. Maybe she needs another rest.

Azula’s always right, of course, she feels much better with a little sleep, but wakes to a snarling stomach and the sun bright in the sky. She casts her eyes out to the empty horizon while she munches on a makeshift breakfast of hippo-cow cheese and dried meat. Only the sea, a flat blue line in every direction. _Where am I? What direction should I even sail towards?_ She thinks back to the storm — _It came from the south, so I must have been blown north. That’s how storms work, right? Damn it all. A princess deserves a crew._

She unfurls the sails, checks her compass, mans the rudder… and. Nothing at all. The sails hang limp, fluttering impotently. Azula waits. And waits. Still nothing. 

“How _dare_ you?!” she yells to the sails. Another mocking flutter. “After all that bluster, _now_ you decide to shut up? A lot of help you are.” She feels flames lick at her fingers. “I’m _Princess Azula!_ ”

Her chest heaves, but she pulls herself back, gripping her temples. She's yelling at the sails. _Unbecoming of me._ The sun crests higher, beating down on Azula’s skin and making her sweat. Without the cool sea breeze, the sun is vengeful, suffocating, consuming. She ducks into the tiny cabin; after all, there’s no sailing to be done with limp sails.

She assesses her stores: a little food, a little water. Enough for several days, perhaps a week… she’d expected a journey of a couple days, maybe. Not this. She grips the side of a crate. _The wind will pick up, it has to… It must._ She's _the_ Azula; her destiny is greater than starving to death in a dreary little fishing boat.

But as the day passes, and then another day, with the air unbearably still and the sun screaming into her eyes, Azula’s resolve begins to falter. Endless hours pacing the short deck, muttering to herself, anything to disrupt the monotonous rush of the waves. Another day, seabirds watching her with beady eyes, alighting on her bow, crowing their judgement at her.

“I can fly, too, stupid bird,” she snarls. They just stare back, eyes black.

Her food stores run low, then empty. She licks crumbs and rations her water ever smaller, knowing thirst will kill her before the hunger does. She stares up at the night skies, belly gurgling and clenching on nothing at all. The stars twinkle down at her, and she can almost hear their soft voices, in the rushing of the waves: Foolish girl. Trembling, weak little girl. Depending on others for survival… your friends, your family… the sails and the wind. They’ll all fail you. Foolish, foolish. Can’t even take your own freedom. Can’t even take your own throne, served to you on a gilded platter. 

They giggle at her, the stars and the seabirds. In the day the sun hisses at her skin, setting her aflame, and in the night the moon fixes her to the deck with its cold gaze, and her hunger pangs fade, leaving only her trembling limbs. The seabirds cackle at her, _Can’t even earn your own father’s love… can’t even earn your own mother’s love, your own mother, your own mother. Disgusting little girl, dying on a puny boat that reeks of fish guts. It’s what you always deserved…_ And the sails stay limp.

Azula stops counting the days; time can only be measured in her dwindling water stores. She can’t even find it in herself to panic as it grew ever closer to empty, her body barely strong enough to lift herself from the cabin to the deck and back again. _I’ll rot out here. Like a fish. The seabirds will have their feast soon. At least I won’t rot in that compound._

The nights grow colder and colder, shivers shaking her body in an attempt to keep herself warm. _Fire… I can warm myself._ Lying with her back to the side railing, she lifts a hand. _My wrists…_ they’re geometric, bones jutting from her thin arms like rocks from a cliff face. _What a waste of a princess._ The flame in her palm sputters to life, dim and yellow, nothing like the blue-hot tongues she so loved to play with. She misses them, her friends, _my loves, the only ones I can depend on, my fire._ She lets the flame die, and lets her hand fall to the wooden planks.

She feels Zuko’s eyes on her, piercing, watching her come undone again. _Here, of all places…_

“Who are you to judge me, traitor,” she rasps. “You burned everything to the ground. Our beautiful nation… beautiful, bright… traitor. You’re pathetic.” She feels a tear burn its way out of her eye and down her cheek. “Pathetic, the both of us. I’ll haunt you, I will. I’ll haunt you.”


	2. Marooned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula stumbles upon an ancient secret.

Azula blinks, eyelids heavy. She thinks the sun might be scouring her clean, like a piece of driftwood, bleached white. Pearly. She brings her hand up to her face, red and calloused from working the ship. Angry. She tries to summon a flame, but she’s only able to produce a flicker, a few sparks that sizzle out. _Pathetic. Can’t even bend._

She tastes salt, whipped up into her mouth from the sea. The mocking seabirds take flight, floating on the breeze, cawing their laughter. _The breeze…_ It brushes a strand of hair across her face, tickling her cheek. _A breeze!_ The gusts come stronger, and Azula scrambles to her feet, limbs trembling.

“I knew you would obey me eventually,” she crows, unleashing the sails, and they snap to attention. _As they should._

She thinks maybe she’s dreaming, but if she is, it’s an exhilarating dream, the breeze cooling her wind-bitten and sunburnt cheeks, her chest filling with glee. She doesn’t care where she’s going, just that she’s finally leaving that godforsaken patch of water she’d been languishing in. She laughs, clutching the rudder.

“I’m coming for you, Zuko!” she screams to the waves. The storm can’t take her, the circling seabirds can’t take her, nothing can.

The boat skids across the waves, and she picks up speed. The sea spray had never felt so refreshing. Before she knows it, she’s spotted land. _Land! I’ve arrived. I’ve come for you, brother._ It draws closer, and she thinks she recognizes that beach. _Ember Island. I’ll hide out in that crumbling old house and gather my strength, and then little Zuzu will regret the day he crossed me. The day he crossed our nation. Our family._

She pulls in, bow splitting the black sands, and looks around for a familiar landmark. _Black sands, like my childhood…_ but nothing else looked familiar. The mountain ridgeline is all wrong, the shore is different. _Maybe I’m on a different part of the island?_ But that doesn’t make sense. Ember Island is a tourist spot, crawling with Fire Nation citizens on their relaxing vacations, and there’s no one to be seen. No swimmers, no towels, no beach houses.

_If I’m not on Ember Island… where am I?_

She stumbles off the boat, hunger blurring her vision. _Wherever I am, I need food. Find food._ Her hands fumble with rope, lashing the boat to a tree. _Whatever, that works. At least it won’t drift away while I look for something_

A coconut tree. _What am I supposed to do, climb a whole tree? Ridiculous._ Azula stumbles further inland, thrashing through the brush. _Stupid bushes._ She growls at the leaves snapping in her face.The sunlight dims as she pressed in, blocked by lush trees and palm fronds. She's searching for something, anything to sink her teeth into… she’s so hungry, she can’t be sure she had even actually found land. Perhaps it's all a beautiful dream, a mirage —

But then she spots it, a shrub heavy with fruit — peaches. Azula snatches one, vibrant orange-pink, and sinks her teeth into it without hesitation. She thinks she might really be hallucinating then, the juice bursting in her mouth is too sweet to be true. _Finally…_ She devours them, hands tearing at the fruit flesh, until her stomach feels like it might burst.

She slumps against the tree trunk, cushioned by the soft ground covering of fallen leaves and vines. Her stomach doesn’t quite know what to do with the fruit after running so long on empty, and she takes deep breaths, praying that her body can adjust.

It’s a long time before she has the wherewithal to truly take in her surroundings, gazing at the forest around her and up at the canopy. It's an old forest, a very old forest; the tallest tree trunks are as thick around as guard towers, and climbing vines and moss cling to every surface they can. The air is heavy, a cool light mist visible at a distance, and as long as she stays very still, birds and insects sing their high-pitched songs to her. Azula had traveled the world, but she had never been here before.

She wipes the fruit juice from her face with the edge of her sleeve. _Maybe a small island off the north coast?_ She stands gingerly, feeling a bit unsteady after her fruit binge. _Ugh, doesn’t matter. Wherever I am, I need to not be here. Who knows what wretched creatures there are._ She trudges back, hoping that she’s moving roughly the way she came, but… she can’t be sure. _Excellent. Survive a storm and starvation just to get lost on some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere. Or eaten. Perhaps I’d rather be eaten._ She tests out her bending, letting a few small flames flicker to life.

“You’re back,” she whispers to them, _beautiful blue. My loves._ She can feel strength returning to her, slowly, like drops from a leaky faucet.

The trees all look the same, the shrubs all look the same, and then she’s well and truly lost, there’s no denying it.

“Stupid!” she exclaims, huffing. The birds shut up for a moment, startled by her outburst.

She presses her nose between her fingers and breathes deeply, feeling her anger and frustration kindle. She knows she had to remain calm, but she’s at the end of her rope, weeks of sailing throbbing in her joints, her muscles weak from starvation, her stomach struggling to process her fruity feast. She can feel flames desperate to spark from her fingertips, smoke begging to curl from her mouth. _Calm down Azula… why can’t you keep yourself under control?_

“You need to calm down,” she snaps. “Look at yourself.” She holds her hands up to her face. “You’ll never get out of here like this.”

She clenches her fists to her sides and tries to breathe deeply again. One small huff of flame, but that’s all. _Better, you’re better. You’ll be fine, you always are._

“You’re Princess Azula of the Fire Nation.”

She forges ahead, stumbling over fallen logs and rocks, birds flitting away before her with little jewel-wings. The birds here are beautiful, with strange crests and tails, patches of brilliant feathers glinting with a flutter. _Stop bird-watching, you stupid girl. Focus on getting back to shore._ Azula wanders for hours, just about to give up and collapse, let her body decompose along with the fallen leaves, when she falls out of the forest again — but not onto the shore.

She had found a broad plaza, flagstones chipped and cracking from years, decades — _centuries?_ — of overgrown vines, the entryway to a ruin. Or rather, the ruins had found her. She sees stepped pyramid structures, surrounded by paths and stone buildings — _a city. I’ve seen pyramids like these before… in my school books. These are the work of the Sun Warriors, or… someone like them. The towers, they’re different._ The architecture is familiar, yes, and the broad strokes are the same, but… _something is strange._ Azula can’t quite put her finger on it.

She walks across the plaza tentatively, remembering what her books had said about the Sun Warriors and their traps. _Some death that would be, dying by the work of ghosts._ Still, she can’t help it. She’d never been confronted with the scale of it before, the walls and walkways crumbling but still awesome in their size. The forest had tried and failed to retake the land, the monuments towering all the same.

Azula ventures further, peering down side alleys and through doorways, but never setting foot inside. _Who knows when these ceilings will finally cave…_ the main boulevard seems safe enough. _Just a little further. Then I’ll find my way back to the ship._

She comes upon a statue, a great bird with wings spread, beak curving down long and thin. She can’t place what kind it is… a heron? Not quite. It’s crest is magnificent, but the end had clearly broken off long ago, laying in pieces on the ground. It lords over the center of a fountain, dry and empty. _Perhaps they worshipped some bird-spirit…_ She considers it for a moment, meeting its eyes. _I suppose you couldn’t save them, or they’d be here now._

The streets are wide, and the city had clearly been planned, laid out in a neat grid, with stairs and bridges leading to different levels of the city. She supposes the ruin is quite old; if there had once been any constructions of wood or cloth, they’d long wasted away, leaving only stone houses and scattered pottery. The breeze lifts Azula’s hair, and she brushes it away from her face. It’s tangled, rough with sea salt — _Ugh. What a disaster. I’ll never be able to fix this bird’s nest._ Her footsteps echo softly around her, and no traps emerge to snatch her up. _The Sun Warriors — or whoever was here — didn’t have such great security after all._ She walks past abandoned houses, storefronts, bathhouses, temples. More statues, smaller, fish and frogs and monkeys. _No people… did they not have any great kings to remember?_

The stonework might have been worn by the intervening centuries, but a sharp eye — _like mine_ — could spy the remnants of delicate work, care taken to construct walls straight up and at right angles, little figures and patterns dancing along the rims of gutters and across the lintels of doors. The moss had tried its best to consume it, but the work of the city’s residents had evidently stood the test of time.

Azula thinks back to her studies at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, learning about their distant ancestors, the Sun Warriors. The ancient first firebenders. Long dead, but she had been required to learn about them anyway. She’d seen a few artifacts in the Royal Museum, open only to the royal family and the most distinguished of aristocrats. They’d been meticulously kept, scraps of textiles and shards of pots, and she’d had to listen to her tutors drone on and on about their cultural significance, how you could see their echoes in the crafts of the modern-day Fire Nation… as she looks around _these_ ruins, Azula can’t see many echoes at all.

The longer she looks, the more she’s certain that she’s not in the old home of the Sun Warriors. _Related, maybe…_ the superficial similarities are there, the broad strokes of the city’s layout and the stepped construction of the central pyramid, looming tall, but the details — _someone else made this place._ Where the Sun Warriors designs were all licking flames and bright suns, this place has crashing waves, twinkling stars, and the crescent moon. Patterns of moon phases pepper the place; they’re on the street flagstones and the peaks of bridges. She even spots a wiggly plant pattern she recognizes as bull kelp. _Were these people… waterbenders?_

Just a little further she spies a large square building, the entrance wide and flanked by carved pillars. Upon closer inspection, the carvings swirl upwards, mimicking seafoam and scalloped shells, breaking into geometric patterns and strange scripts. The bricks making up the building are colossal blocks of stone, fitted perfectly to each other… _how could they move those? The Sun Warriors weren’t earthbenders. Maybe they knew a few dirt-throwers and asked them for a favor._

 _Maybe I’ll just poke my head inside. Just a second._ The interior chamber is equally massive, ceiling arching high above the empty hall, a small skylight allowing sun in from the peak. There are doors at the sides, no doubt leading to caved-in passageways, traps, a violent death by structural failure. _No thanks._ The center of the hall holds another fountain, this one presided over by a stone dragon. _Finally, something familiar._

“I know about you,” she murmurs, and hears the rushing of water.

She enters, drawing closer — _the fountain works!_ Its babbles echo off the high ceilings. The dragon’s eyes glare at her in a warning. She moves hesitantly, feet light on the stones, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. She considers the dragon, and realizes all of a sudden — she’d never seen a dragon with no legs before. _They didn’t fall off, they were never there in the first place._ The delicate carving of the dragon’s scales is still intact, all along its sinuous body.

“Are you a serpent?” she asks it, but the dragon remains silent. It has the face of a dragon, though, with ribbed, fish-like fins where it’s furry crest should be, and horns that branch like coral.

“A sea dragon?” Silence.

Her steps echo along with the fountain as she approaches, and her thirst comes roaring back with a vengeance — the fountain runs clear, twinkling in the dim light. The fruit juices had slaked her thirst for a while, but after hours in the forest her throat burns for hydration.

Azula falls to her knees at the edge of the fountain, pulled by her thirst. The bottom of the fountain is tiled with glimmering mosaic, decorated with patterns that curl up the sides. She bends, dipping her hands to cup the water to her face, not a thought to the origin of the water, bewitched by the crystal clear streams. It’s delicious, heavenly, soothing her parched throat, sweet and cool. _Thank the spirits…_ She turns her face up to the dragon for a moment, water running down her chin to wet her clothes, still rank with sea grime and sweat.

“Thank you,” she gasps, and dips her head again. She can’t get enough, it’s so lovely, clean and gorgeous, _divine_ , and her eyelids droop in pleasure. The rippling water bends the mosaic patterns, diffracting the light. _Pretty mosaics…_ She bends closer to the water, transfixed by the glittering water, raw hands soothed, finally. She gulps down another mouthful, bent closer, pulled closer, just a little more to cut her thirst… and falls in, right through the bottom, and feels herself tumbling endlessly through space.


End file.
